There is a very good read at Crisis today. Fr. Robert McTeigue, SJ, looks into the nebulous notion of “synodality”, which can mean just about anything. He uses a term from analytic philosophy, “blik”. Yes, Father explains what “blik” is. NB: it is not the sound a cat makes when delivering a furball on your grandmother’s handmade quilt. That’s “splik” not “blik”. However… on reconsideration, given the application to “walking together” there is a connection.
Check it out… HERE
There’s good news and there’s bad news. The problem is that the good news isn’t very good, and we don’t know (yet?) how bad the bad news can be. Yes, you guessed it: I’m talking about “synodality.”
The good news is that “synodality” might actually be meaningless. (That raises some questions about why, then, we are spending so much time, energy, and money on the topic; but let’s try to manage one conundrum at a time.) The bad news is that, precisely because “synodality” is a meaningless term (and “meaningless” will be defined below, shortly), it can be used to signify—or worse, justify—anything.
Anecdotally, we are already very familiar with such verbal sleight of hand. “The spirit of Vatican II” was used to justify (if not explain) just about everything. You know how it goes:
Why are we ripping out Communion rails? “The spirit of Vatican II!”
Why should nuns get rid of their habits? “The spirit of Vatican II!” Ad infinitum.
My concern is that before very long when we ask, “Why should we change this or that?” or “Why should we stopping doing this or that?” or “Why should we do what the Church has never done before?” the infinitely elastic (and apparently self-justifying) response will be, “Synodality!”
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I attended a lecture on Modernism given by Dr. William Marshner many years ago. The point he made that has stayed with me all this time is that Modernism is the very first “meta heresy.” Previous heresies were arguments and disagreements over specific aspects of doctrine (is Christ fully divine? is the Blessed Virgin the mother of only Christ’s human nature? How many wills does Christ have? . . .etc.). Modernism is different in that it does not reject any specific doctrine or dogma but rather rejects the idea that words have specific meaning. It’s not a rejection of Christ’s divinity so much as it’s a rejection of the idea that the phrase “Christ’s divinity” means what you think it means.
He argued that this is partly why Modernism seems to attack everything all at once and also why the Church’s response to Modernism has been, largely, ineffective.
Synodality seems to be a culminating moment for this idea.
I hope I have not mischaracterized Dr. Marshner’s points – any error in my comment should be attributed to my foggy memory and not his actual position.
‘I don’t know what you mean by “glory,”’ Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!”’
‘But “glory” doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument,”’ Alice objected.
‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.’
‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master—that’s all.’
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. ‘They’ve a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, they’re the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot! Impenetrability! That’s what I say!’
~”Through the Looking-Glass” by Lewis Carroll, Chapter 6
I like this word, blik.
I am familiar with examples of it, but I didn’t know there was a word for it.
An example of an undefined word, that is used by many people to mean anything or nothing, is “social justice.”
I know of frequent contemporary uses of the term to justify injustice by calling it “social justice.” How many pro-abortion politicians claim to be for “social justice?”
I also know that “social justice” is written about in many church documents since Rerum Novarum.
But, even there, I have never read a concise definition of it.
The notion seems to be taken for granted as obvious in its meaning. But therein lies the danger.
It is described, and examples of injustice are condemned, but is there a concise definition of “social justice” that can be quoted?
Without a concise definition, anybody can claim to be in favor of it. It has to be concise. Referring someone to read all of the papal encyclicals is not concise.
The bizarre false apparition at Bayside had Our Lasy say, “Do not trust any Bibles printed after earth-year 1960.” Earth year as opposed to some other planet’s year? Well, using this wonderful line from Bayside, I do not trust anything coming out of Rome since earth-year 1960. I may miss an occasional good statement, but it’s easier just to ignore the whole lot.
I’d rather we kept using the phrase spirit of VII. Much easier than trying to say synodality!
I think the use of a different word is an acknowledgment that VII is wearing out its welcome.
I suppose Gnosticism can’t be considered the first meta-heresy, since it was around before Christianity? Or could its post-Christian version(s) be termed meta-heretical?
Fr. McTeigue stands apart. If he is ever canonized I will petition for him to be declared “Doctor of Common Sense.”
A treasure.
I came across Father McTeigue just a few weeks before I first so you, Father Z, mention him. I thought initially he was quite good, orthodox, and clever. But I did not realize how clever he is. This piece is brilliant and before I read it I thought the synodal process was quite harmless. But something in the back of my head was bothering me and now I know what it is.
I wonder what Bishop Barron would think of this article?
In the country I live the key word is “inculturization.” it is used to justify any personal idea, especially if imported from the west, that is imposed on the local church.
Thank you for the link – this is a good read!
I do not think I have read anything by Hare, whose Wikipedia article tells me he studied the Classics at Oxford – and returned to teach there – in the days of Tolkien and Lewis. I wonder if philological studies beyond the Classics brought him to come up with “blik”. The first thing it makes me think of is Eliot’s footnote reference in “The Waste Land” to Hermann Hesse’s “Blick ins Chaos” (‘A Glimpse into Chaos’) – which seems fitting in various ways, but probably not ways intended by Hare.
But the spelling is a form found (going by Google Translate) in modern Dutch and Afrikaans. The entry for the verb ‘blican’ in Bosworth and Toller’s Anglo-Saxon Dictionary suggests a connection with Latin ‘flagrare’ and Greek ‘phlego’ with all the examples very much connected with (Divinely-created) “empirical evidence” and “testable claims”. The related noun “blice” means “An exposure; denudatio” as in an example translated “by exposure of the bone [by wounding]”. Hare does seem to have been ‘Humpty-Dumptying’ with a lot of the historical background of the word.